Baseball elected a new commissioner on Thursday by the name of Rob Manfred. Seems to be going well, so far.

It’s hard to believe, but I have to admit that the World Cup really threw this season off for me.

The World Cup?

Of soccer?

Yes – that World Cup.

Perhaps it’s the OCD or maybe the rapid rise of technology. But those tight 2 hour games that always ended when planned made the whole viewing experience awesome. Game was on at 3 and over at 5:05.

I’m enough of a realist to know that baseball can’t be a 2 hour sport. Too much money on the line for everyone involved to have players make the major sacrifices needed to really lop off significant chunks of time.

Still… even though the Cardinals lost Tuesday night to the Marlins, that 2:34 game play was really something to behold. The players were MOVING. It didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, but there was a briskness that really energized me.

Wednesday night the game was 2:40. Again, brisk.

The game needs to pick up the pace. Even though people are making gobs of money, it’s losing stature left and right.

To wit:

I Googled ‘Cardinals’ this AM to see if anything was in the news I give a #HotTake on. And when I hit enter, this is what I saw…

That’s an entire page that doesn’t mention the team that’s actually playing real games right now.

Google knows me. They know I write on a Cardinals blog. They know that I search for St. Louis Cardinals stuff all the time. I was logged in to GMail when I made this search. STILL I get all AZ Cardinals news because…

Well, I can’t possibly be wanting baseball news when training camp is in session, right?

Oh, Google.

It’s a small thing. For one guy. I get it.

But it’s also a sign that just because it’s making money doesn’t mean that the sport shouldn’t be working towards making it better.